These Pokémon Pokeballs were very quick to build. Based on simple 80mm clear decorative plastic balls, it’s just a matter of a bit of cutting, drilling and painting. But as a Brainfoo project we couldn’t just leave it there could we. Oh no. Inspiration hit me playing Pokemon Go, if we combined a smoke pellet or smoke bomb with a pokeball, we create a real life Pokeball with incense…

Real life Pokeball

If you know anyone who likes Pokemon these make a great gift, or a container for a gift like money, sort of a gift within a gift. This makes them a great idea for birthdays or Christmas, where you can hang them on a Christmas tree as themed decorative baubles. The best paint I could find was simple Acrylic paint, I had no problems, but some of the cheaper brands may take longer to dry.
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This build is for my subscribers that not only wanted to have a cheaper build process, but easier parts to buy if you live across the pond in the States. This time I have used a steel saucer as a mold, and again it can be used over and over again to make as many shields as you like.

Steel saucer mold

The main change this time is the use of a ‘Flexible flyer’ steel sled saucer as a mold. While you can’t go full size (2½ feet) with this saucer it’s still a very nice 2 foot wide, ideal unless you are 6’5″ and 18 stones. This of course keeps the other materials like fiberglass resin and fiberglass mat usage down as well.
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Cap’s Shield destruction

So I got asked a lot of questions about my first Captain America shield build, now called the Mark 1, and thinking about it I was dumb not to test it. But as it turned out a lot of my American chums from across the pond had trouble sourcing satellite dishes anyway, so it was a good opportunity to build a mark 2, and kick the bejesus out of it. Here’s the result.
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This bird whistle or bird caller is just so simple and fast to make it’s crazy. But what’s even better is the fun I had learning to play it, it was a bit like being a kid again and learning a new skill for the first time. Some of the silly faces and strangled noises during the 5 minutes it took to master it gave us all a laugh. So let’s have a look at how to make a bird whistle or animal call.

How to make a bird whistle or animal call

The parts you need are simple, some foam shapes (child friendly), a latex glove, and some super glue. The assembly instructions are in the video below.

I know in various parts of the world true strike anywhere matches can be hard, or near impossible to get hold of. So in this project I wanted to show you how to make the ultimate light anywhere match. As always I put in a lot of groundwork and testing and I hope you like the results, maybe you can contribute if you have good results with a particular brand of matches or ring caps on my facebook page and share the knowledge. The following information tells you how to do this project, it doesn’t mean you should though.

How to make a strike anywhere match

To build one of these highly volatile extreme light anywhere matches you only really need two components. A match of your choice, and some simple ring caps, like the ones used in a child’s toy gun. I tried a few different build techniques and found this one gave the most reliable results.

The first step is to carefully remove the paper from the open end of the ring cap and squeeze the powder out onto a tray. For each extreme match you will require enough powder to roughly fill a ¼ of an empty cap. So if your caps do not have this much in them you may need to remove the powder from another ring cap. Squeeze gently. I recommend pliers of some sort in case the cap goes off and burns your fingers. Never ever empty more that one ring caps worth of powder at a time, in case of an explosion – The powder is friction, impact, and flame sensitive, so safety glasses should be worn.

Dip the very tip of your chosen match into some water twice and deposit both drips of water into the powder and stir until mixed into a slurry. Put this slurry onto the tip of a gloved finger and roll the match in it, then try and create separate lumps on the surface of the match head. I say use gloves because we cannot be 100% sure what is in the matches or the ring cap powder. (I don’t on the video because I cannot operate cameras with gloved hands)

Support the head of the match while it drys, and place it somewhere safe away from heat, possible knocks and anything flammable. When dry it will be volatile.

Welcome to my how to make a Captain America shield project. There are other builds on the internet but for me they fall into two categories, either a complicated build that turns out a bit heavy and expensive, or something like a round sledge re-purposed with flimsy, slightly sharp edges. Now there’s nothing wrong with either of those but they tend to be a set size only, and once they are built you have to go out and buy the stuff again to make another. I wanted not only a full size 2 foot 6 inch Captain America shield but custom sizes, and to make as many to any quality I felt like.

With this build technique you could literally set up a Captain America shield factory production line, and probably do very nicely judging from how many people wanted to buy my shield. Great for wall art, cosplay, profit or just for fun.

How to make a Captain America shield

How to find a satellite dish for the shield

The first step to making the shields in any quantity and size is to acquire a mould, and the best mould I could find for a full size shield was a round satellite dish. These can be found relatively cheaply on eBay, and you can pick up a bargain if you are prepared to wait a bit. Look for the dimensions of the dish to be as close to round as possible, mine was 84 x 85cm ( 33 x 33½”). Another place to snag them is at scrap yards, tips and by contacting satellite fitting firms directly for old units. The large compass used is easy to make from scrap wood, it doesn’t have to be elegant. Other alternatives and suppliers are listed in the parts page.